I am this being that wakes each morning dazzled by the light of the dawn.

I am the changeless awareness that perceives my own movement through the world.

I am nature, riding calmly upon this beautiful planet.

I am this rock of life orbiting happily around its star.

I am existence, sailing freely through this corner of the cosmos.

This vastness is my home; this immensity is my being. Without awareness, who can say “I am”?

Contents

THE ESSENCE

What are the ingredients of life? Awareness, stillness, love. Awareness is the most essential of these. You connect with it through stillness and express it as love.

MEDITATIONS

No one sees what your eyes see. No one hears what your ears hear. No one tastes your food for you. Nor do you lose yourself in the crowd, even if you walk together with them.

A Mote of Awareness

You, who are a mote of awareness in the midst of the universe, stop seeking through the mind, chasing after the objects of the world, and dedicate this present moment to feeling the conscious life that is you, and that expresses itself in your body.

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Can you read this and, at the same time, feel your body from within? Don’t rush to continue reading. Stop for a moment and try to connect with the sensation of life that you are. It’s there. It’s always there. You have only to notice it.

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Can this awareness that you are perceive itself by feeling the warmth in your hands, the contact of your feet against the floor, the movement of breathing in your chest or the beating of your heart? Of course you can, and you don’t need the mind to do it. Simply do it. There’s no rush. And there’s really nothing special that you need to do. Just keep from covering it up with the constant chatter of thoughts that clutter up your mind.

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What is it that prevents you from connecting with your body? Is it perhaps the inertia that impels you to keep paying attention to the mind’s constant discourse? And are you really so conservative that you don’t want to change anything in your life? If there is anything in this life that you really possess, it is your capacity for attention, and it is something that you can focus wherever you like. Just as you observe the outer world that reaches you through the senses, you also perceive the mental contents formed by thoughts, memories and expectations.

—&—

Can you now turn your attention to the sensation of being alive that has always accompanied you? It is neither in the outside world nor does it belong to the mind. Its strongest manifestations are in the sensations of contact between your body and the surface that supports you. Can you feel it right now? Can you be aware of your posture? You don’t need to visualize it or think about it. Just feel the contact of your skin with its environment. Feel it from within.

—&—

If you often strive to change the world and the people in it, why not begin with what is closest to you? Yourself. This is a direct experience, without intermediaries. You focus your attention on what is happening in the present moment: on the gamut of sensations that range from the coarsest to the most subtle, such as your breathing or the sensation of life within your body.

—&—

If you can maintain this type of perception, you are more present in what is going on right now than when you give your attention only to the mental dialogue. You feel your body pulsing with life. You discover that at this moment there is no thought because it is not necessary. From within this perception of vitality in the body, you listen more fully to what is really happening. And you immerse yourself in the silence that opens within you when the mind is at rest.

—&—

The seeker –who chases happiness but never finds it– becomes the observer. You walk again through the world without losing sight of what life gives you. Stilling the mind so that the seed of awareness that you are can blossom. What is really experiencing is not the mind but you. And you are this space of awareness that includes everything that arises at every moment, whether it is a sound, an idea or a feeling.

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You are the sky that contains the clouds, which pass over as thoughts and emotions. Why, then, should you identify yourself with the fleeting torments of your mind that cause you so much suffering? You are the conscious presence in which everything is happening. Before anything can happen, there must be someone for it to happen to. And so you focus your attention on the seed of awareness that you are, with your attention open to this sensation of being. You enter into a state that can be felt, and you are filled with calm, stilled.

—&—

Without you there are no memories or fantasies. You feel your heart beating, your body inhaling, your mind thinking. You are, from the moment you are born, this very act of perceiving what is permanent. There are even seeds of this awareness in your dreams. You are the observer who gives reality to the observed. You are this space of awareness which needs nothing external to be complete, as you are part of the totality of life.

—&—

No matter what you do in this world, don’t forget that reality resides in your body and that you are yourself. Not forgetting involves focusing on it. But there is no need to think it or visualize it. Just feel it. Just as you feel the contact of feet against the floor. Only that. Right now. You watch the passing show as just that, a passing show, while your mind remains calm. Meditating is observing and perceiving everything that reaches you at every moment through the six sense doors; that is, the five senses and the mind itself.

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Begin by feeling the permanence that is always there within you, in the impulse to breathe or the sensation of life within the body. And then, from this centre of perception, you open yourself to what arises through the senses and the mind. You open yourself to the transitory. The meditator contemplates what is stable and, at the same time, what is fleeting. What is happening inside as well as outside. First, you anchor yourself in what you feel inside. And from within that perception of life which is expressed in the body, you integrate everything that arises, now certain that you will not be dragged away by the ephemeral.

The Seed and the Tree

A seed is the last of innumerable seeds and contains both the experience and the promise of innumerable forests. Without the seed, there is no tree. Nor is your own body. Awareness is latent in that which we call birth. Meanwhile, the seed of life grows in silence. It witnesses everything that arises, but is neither born nor dies. Its most subtle principle, by which you know that you are, is wordless. You are both the observer of the seed and the seed itself.

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What does it matter if there are as many stars in the sky as there are grains of sand on the ocean-washed beaches? The seed of awareness is one and beats with life within your heart. Can you feel it right now? If you can’t, you must be dead, even if your body is breathing. You make contact with the essential in yourself. You plant the seed and then leave it to the seasons. When you perceive yourself as the seed of space and time, you no longer feel afraid. You see yourself in every living thing. And you long for the essential because you are not satisfied with what fades away. Happiness is your original nature and you won’t rest until you recapture it.

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You feel yourself as a centre of conscious presence. Only when life and matter unite is a personal awareness born. As long as you identify with the body, with name and with form, frustration is inevitable. But, while you may not be able to change your circumstances, you can change your relationship to them. Being patient is an attitude of wisdom. You remain still and the seasons pass, effortlessly. The shoots that flowered in the spring and their fruit has ripened. You let it fall to the earth so that its seeds can germinate. And the cycle of life goes on in silence.

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There is a false idea of oneself as being separate from others. But, although the planets and the stars are far apart, they are dancing hand-in-hand to the same melody. You yourself are the seed that becomes a tree, that covers the mountainsides with forests. You are the last seed but also the first, with infinite potential, with the inexhaustible possibilities of the seedbed of life. You are the seed of awareness that contains all worlds within it, the same seed that exploded in the big bang and is expanding throughout the universe. You are the fruit in the tree, the flower in the field, the living awareness that dwells in every corner of the planet.

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In the silent depths of your being you understand that there is no distinction between the inner and the outer. Between seed and tree, forest and mountain. The tree is already present in the seed. In pure being, awareness arises, and the world appears and disappears. Can you see the world as it really is? As a momentary appearance within this awareness? The shadow depends on reality, but in itself is not real. The seasons change. The trees change more and the mountain less. Feel how the seasons adapt to you while you remain firm and stable inside. Can you be the tree and the mountain at the same time?

—&—

Like the tree, you are rooted to the earth, but at the same time swaying in the wind. You notice this calm balance of firmness and flexibility. Like the tree, you let the stream flowing at your feet carry away that which upsets you. During the day, you feel the heat of the sun from above and notice how the light spills down along the trunk, branches and leaves of your body. At dusk, you look to the sky and discover a star that greets you with its brightness. Where now is the thing that was upsetting you? Did the wind carry it away, or did the water of the flowing stream? Or perhaps it’s still here. But it is now sharing your attention with the warm rays of the sun or the blinking shimmer of the star.